Although advertising in conjunction with movie presentations is well-known in the art, the use of advertising in movie theatres has previously been limited to pre-feature projections on movie theatre screens or printed material contained or displayed on concession purchases, for example.
Although a conventional movie theatre typically contains ample wall space for presenting additional, revenue-generating advertisements, large-format graphic displays for advertising, promotion or design purposes have heretofore not been possible within the theatre environment due to the combination of one or more limitations.
For example, it is undesirable for an advertising display to remain visible to the audience during the presentation of the movie feature. Moreover, traditional signage materials have undesirable acoustic qualities and thus would negatively impact the acoustical component of a movie presentation in a conventional theatre space. As a result of the potential for visual distraction and/or acoustic interference with the use of conventional advertising signage, even though advertising is an attractive revenue stream, movie theatres have heretofore avoided the use of such advertising both to avoid objection by movie studios and distributors and to avoid the potential loss of customers which might result from such usage.
In addition to the above-enumerated problems or drawbacks in the prior art, even if conventional signage displays were acceptable during certain movie presentations, such signage might not be acceptable when viewable during other presentations because of possible specific content conflict or specific studio objection, for example. Furthermore, utilizing conventional signage does not permit cost and/or labor efficient or environmentally friendly mechanisms or methods for changing, modifying, or removing advertising content.
In sum, it would be desirable in the art to have an apparatus or method which can be utilized to provide or display advertising on the otherwise unused wall space within a movie theatre (or other theatre type) which can be concealed or hidden or removed from view during the actual feature presentation. In addition—although not required—it would be desirable to have such a device which is more environmentally friendly, more cost and/or labor efficient to change advertising content (including, in certain non-limiting examples, with which advertising content can be modified or changed with no manual intervention) and/or which will not interfere with the acoustical elements or components of a feature presentation. Similarly, it would be desirable to be able to advertise to theatre patrons on heretofore unused wall space after the completion of the feature movie (or other type) presentation.
In view of these and other desires for improvements in the art, it is a purpose of the herein described invention to address one or more of such desires as well as, or in the alternative, other needs which will become more apparent to the skilled artisan once given the present disclosure.